


Wishes and Other Silly Things

by shoeboxbrain



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Stargazing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, hey yall my heart is dying, like a sendoff until further notice, so i wrote something soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 21:37:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15373854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoeboxbrain/pseuds/shoeboxbrain
Summary: Molly joins Caleb on watch and the two do some stargazing.





	Wishes and Other Silly Things

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'd chicken soup for my aching soul.

The sky was so rarely clear this close to winter, but when the clouds did part it was alight with a dusting of stars - more than Caleb had seen since his strange experience with the Beacon.

Judging from the positions of the stars, it was probably close to 3 in the morning. Caleb would be finishing his watch and switching off soon, but for now he allowed himself to just gaze up at the constellations, picking out patterns he’d learned decades ago from his parents, patterns he hadn’t seen in years - years lost in his mind, years under clouds, years without lifting his head up. He absently traced the Swan with a finger, noting the similarities in the way his hand moved now to when he was casting spells with somatic gestures. Intrigued by the notion, he decided to try tracing other constellations while practicing the somatic component to detect magic with his free hand to see if he could catch overlapping patterns-

“Conducting a symphony?” a voice whispered, closer than he’d like, causing Caleb to jump a bit. He hadn’t heard anyone stir while he’d been lost in his thoughts. If a group of bandits or fish men or a couple ogres had chosen now to attack, the Mighty Nein would be the Mighty  _Tot_.

“ _Scheisse_... Mollymauk, you startled me.”

The tiefling chuckled, patted Caleb’s shoulder, and took a seat beside him near the dull embers of the fire. 

“My apologies, Mister Caleb.” He cast his eyes upward. “Whacha lookin at?”

Caleb took a moment to recompose himself. “Constellations. My parents used to tell me stories about all those, eh,” he waved his hand, “pictures in the sky. You know, things about, eh, gods and kings and bears and hunters.”

“And eloped lovers?” Molly cast a grin at him - sharp and crooked like broken glass. Caleb brushed off his friend’s teasing - he liked to tease.

“Eh,  _ja_ , if you are into that sort of thing.”

A chilly gust caused Caleb to pull his coat a little tighter. He saw Molly absently stoke the coals with his tail, stirring them into a small fire and sending sparks drifting up towards the stars. The rise in temperature was certainly welcomed, and Caleb found himself leaning in towards the fire and the tiefling beside him before turning his attention back to the sky.

“It’s actually the only one I know, and only because of the circus.” Molly leaned back, a different smile spreading across his face - soft and fond, an expression he was starting to wear more around the Nein, but most often wore for just Yasha. “We were in a town during a wedding and sort of crashed it as the unofficial entertainment. Desmond pointed out the two stars and told the story, said it was good fortune for the couple to see both stars on their wedding night. The brides were remarkably good sports about it. Could you teach me some constellations? I don’t really know any.”

“Hm. I’d figure that, as a fortune teller, you’d at least be familiar with the astrological constellations.”

Molly shrugged. “Had Orna try explaining it to me, but I never could get the hang of it. I much prefer my cards.”

“You’ve said before you believe your cards aren’t entirely bullshit. Do you also believe in astrology?”

Molly snorted. “Well, I don’t have much to go on since I don’t really have a birthday per se - it’s not like I had any idea what day or month it was for quite a while. Hell, Gustav isn’t even sure what day it was that they found me. But nah, I don’t think the position of the stars dictate our lives or actions - I think that’s us and the world around us. The cards, they don’t dictate anything - they just encourage you to examine and be weary of certain things.” Molly turned his head towards Caleb, the fire casting ghostly shadows over his face, “How about you? Do you believe the stars have written your fate?”

Caleb furrowed his brow and looked back up at the stars. Predetermination and destiny - was he meant to go through all he had? To do the things he’d done? To be this monster? 

Maybe. Maybe he was just born under a bad star.

The pair sat in silence for about a minute before Molly cocked his head quizzically, like a dog or a young child, and softly spoke, “Caleb?”

“I don’t know.” Caleb’s tone was perhaps darker than he’d intended. “But if that is the case, I’ll rewrite the stars.”

A curious smile spread over Molly’s face, one similar to the time he’d reacted to Caleb having molasses as a spell component with just ‘of course you do’. Caleb couldn’t place the expression - somewhere between the jagged-sharp teasing grin and the soft smile, it had both a playfulness and a fondness to it.

“What?”

“Nothing. Dunno. Just... a very ‘you’ response.”

Caleb furrowed his brow again. “I don’t understand? I am the one responding, so I suppose of course anything I say would be very ‘me’?”

The curious smile got wider as Molly tilted his head back and looked up. “I suppose.”

Caleb continued to study the tiefling for a moment before turning his attention back to the sky, a comfortable silence falling over them. They sat like that for several minutes when a streak of light drew a small gasp from the two of them.

“Make a wish!” Molly breathed, eyes and smile wide with a childlike wonder.

Caleb closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. As a child, he’d been told that a wish had to be completely sincere in order to come true, so you had to be sure you truly wanted what you were wishing for. If you wanted the magic to work, it had to be the first thing your heart wanted.

And maybe it was silly that here they were, two grown men wishing on a shooting star, but they were also two grown men in a motley group named ‘The Mighty Nein’, which was definitely silly. The whole damn situation was quite silly, and here they were on silly, impossible adventures, doing silly, impossible things. Who’s to say this shooting star wasn’t a magic one?

When Caleb opened his eyes, Mollymauk was leaning over him, grinning sharp.

“Whadya wish for?”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you you’re not supposed to say?” the corner of Caleb’s mouth pulled up in the slightest smirk. “It won’t come true otherwise.”

“Come on! I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

“ _Nein,_ you’re not supposed to tell anyone. It’s a secret between you and the star.”

“Oh, boo.” Molly plopped back down next to Caleb, a little closer this time.

“Tell you what - I will tell you my second thought if you tell me yours. So, your wish is the first thing to cross your mind, and that’s what you wish for, but then you always think ‘oh, maybe I should have wished for this instead’. That way, we don’t break the rules.”

This seemed to cheer the tiefling up. “Deal.”

“Alright, then. What was yours?”

“The second wish to cross my mind...” Molly tapped his chin with his finger, his playful expression giving away to an actually thoughtful one. “Hm. I suppose the thing I maybe should have wished for instead was to... how do I phrase this...” he folded in on himself slightly, inky curls falling in front of his face. “to be just me. Not have to deal with anything from more than two years ago - just, none of that. And I can be just me, and nobody will see me as anyone else.”

Caleb was taken aback by the sincerity that was usually so out of character for his friend. He reached a hand out awkwardly and offered a pat on Molly’s shoulder. Molly’s hand shot up and caught Caleb’s, holding it against his shoulder. “How about yours?”

Caleb blinked several times, unsure of how to process the current situation. “Uh, well. I. Um,” he shifted slightly, moving himself in front of his friend so he could leave his hand on Molly’s shoulder without having his elbow at such an awkward angle. “I suppose what I  _should_ have wished for, if it had been my first thought, is more powerful spells.”

Molly glanced up, the fire just barely reflecting in his eyes. “That  _wasn’t_ your first choice? What was it then? Paper and ink? Books? Smut?”

Caleb leaned forward and brushed the hair from Molly’s face, feeling him tense up slightly as he did so, the lavender hand gripping his tighter.

“No, it wasn’t paper, or books, or smut”

“What came to mind before spells and paper, then?”

Caleb rolled his eyes and huffed. “You are so persistent. And distracting.”

Molly’s eyes widened and that same expression spread across his face, and Caleb almost kicked himself.

Admiration, adoration, affection. It was the same expression Beau would cast at Yasha, or Jester at Fjord. The dumb look someone doesn’t knowingly give, but instead just happens when they’re around someone they have a- 

“Gods, I am a  _dummkopf.”_

Wishes are silly things. They join a long list of silly things, like magic, and fate, and pastries, and tarot cards, and horses named after toilets, and cats that are sometimes birds. And perhaps some wishes come true not because of any magic, but because their outcomes were inevitable.

“I wished I could better read your expressions.”

Molly’s smile widened. “I guess you’ll never be able to tell what I’m thinking, then, will you.”

“I suppose not. And what did you wish for, then?”

Molly sucked in a quick breath, “that I’d be brave enough to do this,” and he leaned forward, pressing his lips against Caleb’s.

And, to Caleb’s surprise, he found himself leaning into it as well, his eyes closing and his other hand drifting up into Molly’s soft, dark hair.

Somewhere towards the back of his mind, he thought about how odd it was that possibility and wishes and fate and destiny could all be symbolized by the same thing. How everything with magic always seemed almost contradictory, yet complementary. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew it was silly and probably cruel to let this man harbor a crush on someone like him. These thoughts drifted in fragments like the sparks from the fire, and like how the sparks were upstaged by the stars in the clear sky above them, these thoughts were upstaged by thoughts such as ‘Mollymauk smells nice’, ‘Mollymauk has such soft hair’, ‘Mollymauk is a pretty good person’, ‘Mollymauk’.

Molly grinned as he pulled back, "Now I thought you said if you told someone what you wished for, it wouldn't come true."

"And I thought you said the stars don't dictate our lives."

"Touche," he said, repositioning himself with his side pressed against Caleb's and looking back up. “Well maybe now that we’re not distracted, if we see another shooting star we’ll be able to make those second-thought wishes.”

Even in the dim light, Caleb could see the look of giddy excitement on Molly’s face. Maybe the universe had a ‘no take-backs’ sort of policy going on.

He supposed he’d have to gain the skills he needed to rewrite the stars and bend reality without the help of shooting stars. Maybe, if he was really honest with himself, his heart just wasn’t in it. 

Caleb glanced up, scanning the sky for those two tiny stars. “I’m not so sure I am any less distracted now.”

Molly's tail gently wrapped around Caleb's side, "Me neither."

**Author's Note:**

> shine bright, circus man. goodbye and goodnight.


End file.
